Britain needs to take urgent action over the Channel migrant crisis, Home Secretary Sajid Javid has been told, as three more vessels carrying illegal immigrants arrived on British shores on Sunday.
Sixteen men, the majority of whom identified themselves as Iranian, were given medical checks and then held for questioning by immigration officials after Border Force officials were alerted to arrivals on England’s south-east coast.
Authorities were first called at around 7 a.m. to reports of a landing on a beach in Kingsdown, Kent, where it appeared a group of six men had dumped a dinghy, life jackets, and fuel canisters, according to Sky News.
Border agents then responded to reports shortly after of another abandoned inflatable boat, this time at a beach in Folkestone, before intercepting a third vessel, carrying eight men, at 9.30 a.m. and towing it into the port at Dover.
With witnesses telling journalists there would have been “no chance” that the flimsy dinghies left abandoned on British beaches could have made it all the way from France, The Sun reports it was likely that smugglers were using larger ships to transport migrants across the Channel before dropping them off near the English coast in small, inflatable boats.
Demanding to see “greater action” from the Home Office over the landings. Dover and Deal MP Charlie Elphicke said: “the best way to stop these crossings is for migrants and traffickers to know they won’t succeed in entering the UK.
“That’s why there needs to be round the clock aerial surveillance to ensure the French authorities are alerted to any small craft leaving the French coast so they can be helped safely back to France,” added the Tory MP.
Responding to a huge spike in the number of migrant crossings over the Channel, Mr Javid declared a “major incident” in the English waters last month, cutting short his Christmas break abroad to respond to the issue.
Earlier this month, Breitbart London reported how criminal trafficking gangs operating from Calais, France, have been telling would-be migrants that they are practically guaranteed residency in Britain because authorities almost never send illegal immigrants back, even “if police catch you”.
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